Burning Cash on Brand Keywords & Other Marketing Myths

How Marketers Are Scaling With AI in 2026

61% of marketers say this is the biggest marketing shift in decades.

Get the data and trends shaping growth in 2026 with this groundbreaking state of marketing report.

Inside you’ll discover:

• Results from over 1,500 marketers centered around results, goals and priorities in the age of AI

• Stand out content and growth trends in a world full of noise

• How to scale with AI without losing humanity

• Where to invest for the best return in 2026

Download your 2026 state of marketing report today.

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Position #1 is Dead: Why Your Ranking Reports Are Lying to You

If you're still popping champagne because your agency got you to "Position 1" on Google, prepare to have your buzz killed.

As SEO veteran Carrie-Ann Sudlow points out, being "number one" organically today usually means your site is buried somewhere beneath three paid ads, an AI Overview, a Local Pack, two YouTube videos, and a Reddit thread. 

On mobile, users practically need a sherpa and a thumb workout just to scroll down to where "Position 1" actually sits.

To make matters worse, personalized search results mean your client, their assistant, and their mom are all seeing three completely different versions of the SERP anyway.

The takeaway? Stop treating keyword rankings as your holy grail KPI.

A third-place ranking with a killer title tag can easily out-convert an invisible "top" ranking.

Unless a #1 spot is actually driving qualified leads and dollars into your bank account, congratulations, you just won a trophy for an imaginary race.

Measure revenue, CTR, and conversions instead, and leave the vanity rank-tracking in 2015.

WTF is F.A.C.T.S.? (Because Apparently We Needed Another SEO Acronym)

Just when you finally memorized Google's E-E-A-T, local marketing platform SOCi dropped a brand-new, hot-off-the-press framework called F.A.C.T.S. (Freshness, Authority, Consistency, Trust, and Semantic Relevance).

Because if there’s one thing search marketers were desperately begging for, it was definitely more letters to throw into a PowerPoint deck.

Eye-rolling aside, there are actually some wildly useful numbers buried in this pitch. AI search engine citation stats prove we’re playing a totally different game now:

• Freshness rules AI: Over 70% of pages cited by AI were updated in the last year, and a staggering 76.4% of ChatGPT’s top citations were updated in the last 30 days.

• Prompt length is exploding: The average Google search is a cozy 4 words. The average AI query? 23 words. If your content isn't detailed enough to answer long-winded questions, AI will pretend you don't exist.

• AI is a snob: Local businesses recommended by ChatGPT carry an average 4.4-star rating, compared to a 3.1-star average on Yelp.

So yeah, the acronym might trigger an instant headache, but the takeaway is clear: if your content is stale, vague, or hovering at 3 stars, AI models aren't just ignoring you, they're giving your business to competitors who updated their site this month.

Forget Google: Why Your Next AI Leads Are Hiding in Brave Search

While every marketer and their mother is still obsessively tweaking titles to appease the Almighty Google, B2B buyers have quietly migrated to Claude to ask big-kid questions like "What’s the best CRM for startups?" or "Who shouldn't I buy from?"

Here’s the plot twist: AI tracker Profound found an absurd 86.7% overlap between the web pages Claude cites and Brave’s organic search results. Translation? Claude isn’t looking at Google or Bing for answers, it’s getting its cheat codes directly from Brave.

Now, here is where it gets really wild: Claude only triggers a web search for 36.6% of general prompts. But for commercial intent like ranking comparisons and "X vs Y" queries, that search trigger jumps to 67% and 51% respectively.

So if you’re trying to win buyers right at the moment of decision, the Brave Search play isn't just a fun growth hack, it could become a playbook in your arsenal.

While your competitors are sitting around waiting for Google Search Console to update, optimizing for Brave is the ultimate low-hanging fruit to steal high-intent SaaS leads right out from under them.

Burning Cash on Your Own Name? Stop Paying the Google Tax.

If your company is currently setting hundreds of thousands of dollars on fire every month bidding on your own brand name, you’re in good company. And by "good company," I mean companies being happily robbed by search engine algorithms.

Brand growth gets hot, competitors start aggressively bidding on your name, and Google’s "helpful" advice is always: just spend more money!

But as SEO strategist Eli Schwartz recently proved, most of those paid clicks would have come through organically for free anyway.

By actually testing for incrementality, Eli helped a client slash their branded search budget by a whopping 63% (saving a cool $280k/month) without losing a single customer.

They dumped those savings into starved, high-performing channels like paid social, boosting their total marketing ROI by over 7% in 60 days, proving that sometimes the best way to scale isn't spending more, but simply stop paying for what you already own.